


we are children of dust and ashes

by sashawire



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Episode: s01e10 The White Violin, Gen, God Complex, Mental Instability, Mentions of canon-typical violence, Trauma, Vanya Hargreeves-centric, vanya both hates and loves her siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:21:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23142373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashawire/pseuds/sashawire
Summary: Occasionally she’ll catch a glimpse of her siblings’ faces in the chaos of the crowd. Round moons, pale under her brilliance. Sometimes horrified, sometimes fearful, sometimes awed.Her siblings,the Umbrella Academy,may have been the sun, bright and gold and all-consuming, but she is the winking starlight left in their absence. Eternal and unbridled. They can’t drown her out forever....The White Violin would rather die than be ignored.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 123
Collections: The umbrella academy





	we are children of dust and ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the song “Dust and Ashes” from _Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812_
> 
> In case you couldn't tell, I adore Vanya Hargreeves. Thus, I wrote a fic about the scene where she is slowly crumpling under her own mental instability.
> 
> This is a character study btw, not a fix-it. The apocalypse _is_ prevented, but that's not what the fic centres around. There are plenty of excellent vanya-centric fix-its in this fandom, go read them!!
> 
> my tumblr is @brightwritesstuff :)

The White Violin smiles. Somewhere, deep down, buried under layers of trauma, music, and unbridled  _ fury, _ Vanya Hargreeves trembles.

The White Violin is not her own entity, no matter how much she has disconnected from the rest of herself. The White Violin is a concept, a feeling. She is crescendos and  _ forte forte forte, _ she is crumbling walls and slashed throats, she is broken glass and crumpled bodies.

The White Violin is entirely made up of Number Seven’s rage and Vanya Hargreeves’ endless resentment. She is every vicious word they have ever thought of their siblings, she is every night they sat and  _ waited  _ for their lost brother to come home, she is every shuddered flinch when their father raised his voice just a little too loud.

She is a being made of pure hate and bitterness and fear. It should be painful. It isn’t.

The White Violin has been suppressed for so many years. Hidden, caged, the same way Number Seven had been. The White Violin exists, and she’s tired of being locked away.

Light spills from the breaks in her skin, the gaps in her flesh. The entire theatre is bathed in it. It’s no surprise. She’s covered in cracks, after all.

But tonight, she isn’t ashamed of it. Tonight, she  _ relishes _ the fissures that spiderweb across her person. She tells everyone around her,  _ look at me. Do you see me now? You tried to keep me in the shadows, but your hits only make me burn brighter. _

She thinks of every cold look and every sharp word that has ever been thrown at her, and only plays harder.

Occasionally she’ll catch a glimpse of her siblings’ faces in the chaos of the crowd. Round moons, pale under her brilliance. Sometimes horrified, sometimes fearful, sometimes awed.

Her siblings,  _ the Umbrella Academy, _ may have been the sun, bright and gold and all-consuming, but she is the winking starlight left in their absence. Eternal and unbridled. They can’t drown her out forever.

There is noise, so much  _ noise, _ happening around her, but she pays it no mind. Her music remains the boldest of all, taking up all the air in the theatre, echoing off the walls in its forcefulness. The White Violin would rather die than be ignored.

She can also feel bullets whizzing past her, close enough to rustle some flyaway hairs on the side of her head. Number Seven whimpers. Vanya Hargreeves quivers. The White Violin wants to laugh. They think bullets,  _ bullets, _ little wads of metal, would be enough to stop her at this point?

The violin is close to snapping under the raw amount of power using it as a vessel. She can feel it, the way she can feel the heartbeat in her ears and the heaving breaths in her throat. The violin is part of her, has been since the beginning. It’s gotten through her life without a scratch, always a constant that she can cling to after it’s all done. She can’t lose it now.

The White Violin eases up on the playing, just a fraction of a percent. It’s strange to think that she doesn’t know her own strength. From the moment she lost her powers until the moment she slit Allison’s throat, she has always been the fragile one. Not delicate, delicate would imply something precious, something worth protecting. Number Seven was a chipped piece of crockery to be put away when finished with. Vanya Hargreeves was just the sad, sickly-looking third-chair violinist to be pitied.

But the White Violin is greater than the both of them. She will be the one who lasts.

Just as she thinks that, releasing a particularly high note from the strings, she catches a glimpse of someone out of the corner of her eye.

It’s here where two universes split apart, identical up until this one detail. In another world, the White Violin looks away, uninterested in what her  _ (weaker) _ sister is up to, preferring to focus on her solo. Tonight isn’t about Allison, it isn’t about any of  _ them, _ she tells herself, and carries on.

In this universe, the White Violin is still disinterested, but holds her gaze a second longer, enough to spot the dark, suspicious object shaking in Allison’s hand.

A gun. And it’s about to be trained on her.

Number Seven sobs. Vanya jolts. And the White Violin, the White Violin  _ falters. _ Only for a second, and it’s over before she can even register it.

_ Something _ takes over from within. The spindly, starved part of her (not Number Seven, not Vanya Hargreeves, but something they share between them, a shameful secret) that still, after all this time, loves her siblings. That still hurt when they forgot her, that still cried when they raised their voices. That always, just a little bit, believed her brother would come home.

That ugly thing, it takes over for just one moment. It sees Allison aiming the gun, and it  _ screams _ so loudly inside her that the White Violin falls to her knees. Her brothers fall with her, and the hall is quiet.

Number Seven cries for Pogo and her mother. Vanya Hargeeves cries for Allison and her brothers and the love she lost to Leonard. The White Violin cries for herself, and only herself.

They sob as one, short and dry and only once.

She knows her siblings are staring at her. They don’t know what to do—to attack her or to comfort her. To lock her up or bring her home.

_ Don’t touch me, _ the White Violin crackles, furious as a stormcloud trapped inside a bottle.  _ Never put your hands on me again. _

_ Please hug me, _ Number Seven begs.  _ Please, just once, tell me I’ll be alright. _

Vanya Hargreeves is strung somewhere in between.

The power is still there. The power she built up during her solo, in preparation for  _ what, _ she didn’t know, all she knew was that if she had enough power, no one could ever take away her feelings or trick her into loving them or lock her inside a cage again—

It’s still there. It sits uncomfortably in her chest, between the slats of her ribs and her soft human organs. It’s like a balloon in her ribcage taking up all the room inside and making it hard to breathe and she doesn’t know what to  _ do _ with it. She doesn’t know what to  _ do. _

She wants to cry again. She doesn’t.

The White Violin is a cornered animal. She’s snarling and thrashing and clawing, howling to herself.  _ They’re going to lock us up again! They’ll put us back in there! WE’RE GOING BACK WE’RE GOING BACK WE’RE— _

Outwardly, she shudders. Her fingers curl around her violin like talons. If she loses this, she dies.

Number Seven is curling in on herself, the White Violin continues to scream and struggle, so only Vanya Hargreeves notices Allison creeping up behind her.

The gun is still in Allison’s hands. Vanya Hargreeves closes her eyes.

A thump to the back of her head (not a gunshot, why?) and the world fades.

It’s quiet.


End file.
